In the related art, self-driving technologies for making vehicles travel by themselves without driver's participation in a variety of control such as acceleration, steering, and braking are known. Also, an override technology for switching a vehicle from a self-driving mode to a manual driving mode if a driver's operation related to driving of the vehicle is received in the course of self-driving while using such a self-driving technology is known (see Patent Document 1 for instance).
Also, technologies for acquiring awakening conditions of a driver if a driver's override operation is received and invalidating switching to a manual driving mode if the driver is in a non-waking state such as a dozing state have been proposed.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-153048
However, the above-mentioned technologies of the related art have room for further improvement in preventing a vehicle from getting into a dangerous situation in the case where the driver changes from the non-waking state to a waking state in the course of an override operation.
Specifically, in the case where the driver has changed from the non-waking state to the waking state in the course of an override operation, it is difficult to consider that the override operation has been intentionally performed. For this reason, in the case where switching to the manual driving mode is easily performed if the driver says that he has awakened, the driver may abruptly change the vehicle in alarm, thereby putting the vehicle in a dangerous situation.